I don't own the Mass Effect. Obviously wish I did.


Prologue 3: The Game

I felt my lips thin with irritation as I glared at the person inside of our private box. It was supposed to be empty. It had certainly cost enough to have the box to just me and Rane, plus having dinner and drinks delivered throughout the game.

If Matriarch Aethyta was bothered by my expression, she certainly didn't show it, instead just tossing her head as she worked on fixing herself a drink. She was in a casual white dress, but the skirts were layered enough to hide a small armory. "You two going to get your asses in here or just stand in the damned hall? Nice jerseys by the way, always liked the black ones."

Letting out a huff of breath, I waved Rane'li in ahead of me before following. We were both wearing the local team's alternates as shirts, which was something else I'd bought for her.

She'd been ecstatic just at the idea of attending a River District game in person. When she'd found out that I'd paid for what essentially amounted to a private room she'd actually been speechless for a few minutes. I'd mentally congratulated myself before waving away her protests that it all was too much.

"Matriarch.." The lowborn woman spoke as we headed for the broad couch facing the window. "From Cieran's expression, your presence is not part of the date."

"Sorry to crash the party kids, but have some crap to go over with you both." Liara's muscled father grunted as she mixed liquids together. "Sooner we're done, sooner you can enjoy yourselves."

It surprised me at just how irritated I actually was... and how much I'd wanted to have an enjoyable night out with Rane. "Get on with it."

Aethyta threw me a mild look. "Ease off there kid."

I waved a hand in a vaguely apologetic manner before collapsing onto the couch. Rane joined me a moment later, hesitating for only a second before settling directly beside me. Her skin darkened when I slid an arm around her waist, gently pulling on her until she was leaning against my side.

The broad glass before us gave an excellent view of the oval stadium, fans still filing into the seats as groundskeepers made a few last minute checks to the pitch. "I take it you got my message then."

"I did." Pouring orange liquid into three separate glasses, she waved a glowing hand before floating two of them in our direction. Which in itself was a rather terrifying display of biotic control. "Still need at least one more, let's you operate pairs without any issues."

"I already have the dossiers you sent me." Reaching up I grabbed the two cups, handing one to Rane as the biotic glow faded. "Or did you have someone in mind?"

"Taking some of them away." She corrected, striding around the couch to a settle herself in a small chair off to the side. "Few of them have signed on with the other teams and are getting their shit off of Omega. And Tris claimed the Turian twins."

Dammit, they'd been the ones I'd been hoping to snag. I sipped from the smooth drink, enjoying the way the various flavors covered up any trace of alcohol. Dammit again. It was hard to stay annoyed with Aethyta when she made drinks like this. "Who does that leave me?"

"All of the tier one candidates are out to sea. That doesn't leave you with anyone terribly trustworthy kid." It was her turn for her lips to thin. "I know you're going to hate this, but you might want to check out the slave markets."

Rane stilled a bit as I growled, taking a very long pull from my glass. "You're right, I don't fucking like that idea."

"I'm not saying you don't free whoever you buy kid, give them a damned job on top of it."

"Just no going vigilante and killing the people running it."

"Yeah. None of that shit."

Blowing a breath out of my nose, I managed a tight nod. "I'll think about it."

"All I can say. If you really want to just run with three you probably could, but I wouldn't recommend it." It didn't exactly sound good to me either. We'd have to sleep in some odd fucking shifts to make sure that two of us were awake at all times to mind the store, and who the hell knew how we'd get anything over to Tris. No way I'd send Rane or Illyan out alone, or leave only one person behind. Somehow I didn't think she'd be terribly happy if she always had to send her own people over. "Apart from that, have the rest of the details for you. Suppliers, location, all that crap."

Giving Rane an apologetic glance, which earned me an understanding smile. "I'm going with, remember?"

"Fair point." Though I was still a little annoyed, this really could have waited. Still, irritated or not, I waved my glass in the Matriarch's direction. "Suppliers first, what are we looking at?"

"Acolytes, Disciples, Watchers. Mostly older models, there's a few corps on planet that I've strung deals with for you." Her lips curled with amusement. "Shaaryak Arm's tech mines."

Rane spat some of her drink back into her cup, and I could only stare blankly. "How?"

"Three dummy corps shifting assets to a trading house willing to ship crap to Omega." Aethyta looked more than slightly pleased with herself. "Feel free to help yourself to a few crates."

I certainly fucking would. "Any other pleasant surprises?"

"Not from a products standpoint. Mix of Batarian and Human guns, better than what most of those poor idiots on Omega can afford but nothing special by our standards. Should keep most of the riffraff from shopping there, restrict your clientele to the people I actually want to hear about."

While also not actually providing them with high level weaponry. Even the mines that Trena and I had designed for Nynsi to produce weren't all that awesome. Better than the mass produced crap most armies used, sure, but we just hadn't had the precision tools needed to make commando or Spectre level equipment.

My lowborn girlfriend leaned forwards slightly, her lower eyes watching the players arriving on the field below us while her upper set stayed on Aethyta. And I belatedly wanted to hit myself for being an idiot. Of course Rane didn't mind her being there as much as I did. She could fucking watch the game with one set of eyes and focus on Aethyta with the other.

"Have you heard anything about the power armor?"

"Only that she's clearing out an old factory and buying shit that could be used to produce exoskeletons."

I couldn't stop a scowl. "Seriously? Been gone for two fucking months and she's already trying to use my blueprints?"

"Did you expect anything different?"

"No, but.. shit. Any chance you can get us a prototype if they get to production?"

Aethyta rolled her eyes. "She wasn't born yesterday kid. Getting you a few crates of grenades is one thing, not going to be calm seas if I try for that."

One of Rane's hands patted my leg, though she seemed equally irritated that Nynsi would be making money off of work that we'd done. "I'm sure we could find a construction model on Omega, we could always reconfigure it as before."

"I'd rather you didn't." Liara's father threw back the last of her drink before continuing. "Face it, the stories about the only human with a Batarian title and his makeshift power armor are fairly well known at this point. Rather defeats the point of being spies don't you think?"

A slow breath escaped my nose. "You have a fake ID for me then?"

Blue lips thinned. "I do. I've also got another request kid."

"Sounds ominous."

She spoke as if I hadn't. "We've got nothing on the Matriarch who attacked you and the others, even after a year of work. There's been a few new cases of Floating Mind in Citadel space but nothing that sets off my storm warnings. I need a way to set off whatever alerts she's got to monitor you."

Rane slid all of her eyes in my direction, her expression shifting to one of concern. "You want to fake his death."

"That'd be the logical thing to do, yeah. Probably an isolated aircar crash in Vasir's jurisdiction. Quick report that you were drinking heavily, private services with T'laria and her bondmate as the only attendees."

Swallowing the last of my drink, I set the glass on the floor before rubbing my face with my left hand.

"Cieran?"

Taking a short breath, I nodded before taking a moment to collect my thoughts.

The more I'd thought on the Matriarch, the less I'd liked what I'd come up with. She had said she wanted to improve things, make shit better, and that's what her Chosen One was for.. but she hadn't said how. Or for who. Shitty as the Reaper War had been, I couldn't think of anything that Shepard could really do to have improved things. Even her death had bought the galaxy two years. That had been wasted, sure, but it had still been additional time that they might not have had if Shep had kept stirring up shit.

If she was serious about making crap better, I'd have expected.. you know, improvements already in the works. Fleet build ups, larger military budgets, things like that. But I hadn't seen anything like that on the news. In contrast, the Asari Republics actually seemed to be likely to decrease the size of their armed forces in the coming years.. and apart from the military itself I hadn't heard of much opposition.

Which was really fucking worrying.

"I don't mind the idea as a concept, especially if it gives you a lead on that bitch. You have a name and stuff lined up?"

"Geoffery Kie MacKeanen. You'll need to color that fur a different color, and either cut it or let it grow even longer. I'm also bringing in a human agent to get some fake scars on that pale skin before you leave. Not enough to fool a biometric scan but if they're applied in the right spots they can at least throw some doubt on just a facial analysis."

I couldn't stop a snort. "You don't think that the name's a little too obvious?"

"You said it yourself kid. You're not exactly spy material, neither are you girl. Need it close enough that you can get away with what your friends might call you anyway. And besides, it's so damned overt nobody would believe you're stupid enough to use it as an alias." Which was actually a good point. "There's a tablet on the bar with your new background. Memorize it, going to have T'laria's bondmate quiz you daily."

Awesome.

The warm hand on my leg gave it a gentle squeeze. "If the Hegemony believes you to be dead, that would be... advantageous as well."

Translation, none of the high families would send assassins or SIU teams after the human who had dared be named into their ranks. Not that they'd do it openly, they were big on avoiding precedents. Former Harath'krem weren't people you had killed, they were people you hired as mercenaries. Usually as agents to help you go after whoever had just fired them. Or at least, that was the normal order of things if the Reyja'krem was anything but a member of homo sapiens.

"Assuming Shaaryak doesn't figure it out," I kept my voice even, glancing away from both of them to watch the game in progress below. It was still early in the first, the small gray sphere that was the ball sailing into the air as uniformed Asari flitted across the grass. "And tell them. She isn't stupid."

"She's on the outs with the Hegemony just for leaving you alive. Plus the whole trade deal falling apart." The shrug was audible in Aethyta's voice. "I don't doubt that she'll connect the sea to the shore, but they haven't given her any reasons to tell them about it."

Rane and I shared a glance of disbelief. Not that I doubted that the Hegemony had shot themselves in the foot, Balak was more than capable of fucking up anything that required tact and diplomacy, but my ex and I hadn't parted on anything like good terms.

"You may wish to communicate that it would be a poor idea for her to do so." Rane's low voice was carefully tactful. "To ensure clarity on her part."

"..just fucking ask me to blackmail her girl, don't be so uptight about it."

My companion gave me a slightly helpless glance, all of her eyes flicking to mine. That was about as verbally direct as she could get to threatening a highborn without a lot of time to focus on getting the words out. "Blackmail her only if you have to. She holds grudges."

There was a snort. "I'll talk with her. So long as you lot can handle your part, you shouldn't have Batarian agents on your tails. Goddess knows you'll have enough crap to worry about on station without that kind of shit distracting you."

After that, the conversation went onto some of the other details. We'd be setting up at the edge of Talon territory, in the Fumi district. Close enough to the dividing line between it and Aria's Tuhi zone that other groups could reach us to make purchases, but also secure enough that we'd hopefully be able to dodge the random riots and gang wars that plagued the place. Trisren had found a safe-house of her own in Tuhi, close enough that she could support us if we needed the help.

Once we had that down, the rest was fairly boring. What comm channels to use, what circumstances would warrant what emergency measure, the best ways to secure the location, that kind of thing. One temporary sticking point was that I wanted to have a secure line from our new shop back to Illium. Being able to pick Trena's brain, as well as stay up to date on her half of the investigation, without needing to go through Tris would be nice.

Plus it would let Illyan message Erana at will.

By the time Aethyta was satisfied that we had everything we needed for now and had departed it was half time. Just to rub some salt in my wounds, I'd missed all four goals that the local team had scored and Rane was pretty sure that we'd be subbing out our best players in the second half.

"So much for our date." I sighed, not really watching the biotic artists putting on the halftime show. Aehtyta had had the decency to mix us two more drinks by way of apology before she'd left, and we were both sipping from them as we waited for the game to resume.

"It could have been worse." Rane pointed out quietly, her solid body carefully leaning into my side. "Even if it will take me a while to call you.. Geoffery?"

My lips twisted in displeasure at the reminder. "Please don't."

"Kie then." Her head shifted so that she could brush her mouth against my cheek. "If that is acceptable."

"In public." I hesitated for a moment before turning, catching her lips with mine before she could pull back. She froze in surprise at the touch, only slowly returning the gentle kiss. I allowed myself to enjoy the motions for a while before I pulled away, a soft exhale her only protest that I had stopped. "In private.. I would vastly prefer Cieran. I'd rather not forget my name."

There was a tiny nod, an almost deliriously happy expression on her face. It wasn't that hard to figure out why. That had been the first full kiss that I'd actually initiated. "Cieran.."

Shifting I bit, I tightened my right arm around her waist before using it to shift us a bit. Her head found its way back to my shoulder, a small sound of contentment escaping the lowborn as I held her. Which made me feel a little bad about continuing with the serious conversation.. or rather, starting the conversation I'd wanted to lead this date with in the first place.

"Rane.. you're doing better about.. you know." Nice. Way to use your words Cieran. "I mean, you're still a bit.."

"Deferential? Submissive?" Her voice was low, but not upset like I'd worried she might get. "I've talked with Trena more than once about.. well, you. She says that you want a partner, not a subordinate."

She wasn't wrong, "Please tell me you haven't been trying to change just for that."

"I won't deny that it was a factor, but it was not the only one." She shifted a bit further, her right arm reaching across her body so that her fingers could absently play with my facial hair. "When you spoke with me, and visited when I was in the hospital, you acted as if my former caste didn't matter. You just.. treated me as if I was..."

"You had just saved my life."

"And you had saved mine in return. It wasn't as if that.. that.. chenethic asshole would have let me live." I failed entirely to smother a grin at the curse. Not that I really tried. "I just.. after I recovered, and you and Trena began helping me.. I wanted to just be.. one of you. No caste. No cultural rules. Just.. friends."

There was a soft sound as she shifted again, hand dropping to my shirt to press against my sternum. "I saw how Chen and Marn acted around you. They were polite but still.. distant. They acted like the midcaste that they are.. were, and you never really.."

"Became friends." I supplied. We really hadn't, come to think of it. Chen and I had gotten along fairly well initially, far better than I and Marn had ever managed. But as time had gone by the sniper and I had definitely stayed rather distant when not in combat situations. We'd never gone out for drinks or just hung out. "Rane, I'm not.. saying that I mind some of the things you do. It's.. a nice change of pace. But like you said.. I don't want you to do things just because I say so, or stay quiet just because I made my opinion known."

"Like going to Omega?"

"Like that, yeah."

She was silent for a moment, the pair of us watching as the players slowly began to return. When she did speak, it was clear that she was choosing each word carefully. "Even if he and I weren't together, I would wish to accompany my friend. I.. cannot promise that it will always be easy for me, but I will endeavor to make my opinions known. You.. don't mind me being..?"

Tilting my neck, I let my cheek rest on her forehead. "Deferential? Polite? Honestly I'm getting a bit attached to it. Use all the polite language you want, so long as you let me know what you're thinking."

Another bit of silence was broken when she blurted out a single word. "Black."

I blinked in confusion. "Black?"

"Your fur. You.. should color it black." I could practically feel her skin heating up. "And let it grow longer instead of cutting it."

My lips curled at the edges. "I'll keep that in mind. No more serious talk this half?"

Her only reply was to nuzzle her head into my shoulder a bit more, sighing quietly as I held onto her.


Next up is Prologue 4: The Farewell

So. Finally some more details about what's coming on Omega, and Cieran and Rane talk a little bit about their relationship. So long as she manages to let him know what she's thinking, such as when she believes he's being an idiot, he doesn't mind her using polite and deferential language. What matters to him is that she's voicing her opinion, not the manner in which she does it.

The next chapter will be the final prologue chapter, and from the name it should be pretty obvious what it covers. After that, we'll be on Omega and into the story proper. It will release next Tuesday.. or whenever I get tons of reviews that make me happy. :)

Please read and review, criticism is welcome, flames not so much, as usual. Reviews are my lifeblood as a writer.. every-time my email goes off with a review it makes me want to write more, so please take the time to leave one. Guests can leave them as well, and it only takes a minute, so please. Even if it's as simple as "I enjoyed it, please continue."

Thanks, Kat


Author's Fun Fact: The Reapers & Cieran Kean

A few people noted this in Arrival, and occasionally in Terminus, but Cieran's opinion on the upcoming war has never really been detailed. Between the Matriarch's threats and his own conviction that no one would actually believe him if he revealed the 'truth', the extent of his planning was making sure that he and his companions were combat ready when the time came. At the time that meant Nynsi, Trena, and the mansion's staff and inhabitants.

But with his exile and his internal promise to make things better for Trena & Ghai's daughter, there will be some forward planning occurring during Ronin as far as the future war goes. That the day of the Reapers' return looks far closer as the timeframe for ME1 approaches is another motivator, alongside his increasing paranoia as to just what the Matriarch is/was up to.


Review Responses:

BJ Hanssen - I stuck with just the ME1 system simply because it always seemed to make more sense to me, it makes the omni-tools seem less.. well, magical.

Guest - Power armor hasn't gone away, and we will actually see both Turian and Asari combat models in this story.

envy34 - I do have a few concepts in mind on a similar line of thought to that.

SpiritStrike -Very bad idea doesn't even begin to cover it. Assuming that I don't screw it up somehow, the Cieran at the end of Ronin won't quite be the same person from the start of it.

Tusken1602 - The canon BP and Eclipse will both make appearances, yes.